In The Living River Project: Art, Water and Possible Worlds, co-curators Patrick Mahon and Stuart Reid build on previous iterations of the exhibition to consider the cultural, historical and environmental significance of water issues in the Windsor-Detroit corridor. The Detroit River, which connects Lake St. Clair with Lake Erie is one of the world’s busiest waterways and border crossing points, and has the distinction of having dual heritage designation from Canada and America. The river’s shores embrace the largest metropolitan area on any international border. It is also one of the first International Wildlife Refuges, known for being a large habitat for many ecosystems and species. Historically, Indigenous peoples have been recorded on the shores from as early as 400 A.D. Settlement by Europeans happened around 1650 with trade, culture and industrialization spurred by the river and its resources. The Detroit River was also an integral part of the Underground Railway, a crossing point for slaves escaping to freedom.

Drawing from the region’s history as well as the increasingly precarious ecology of this body of water, artists Nadine Bariteau, Patrick Mahon + Dickson Bou, Elizabeth Chitty, Joscelyn Gardner, Colin Miner, Chris Myhr, Troy Ouellette, Lee Rodney with Justin Langlois, Michael Dara, Hamilton Perambulatory Unit and Interminus Research Group, Quinn Smallboy, Patricia Coates, and Jennifer Willett come together to reflect on the nature of water while advocating for its historical preservation and environmental protection. A related creative project on display, entitled River of Names, involved school children from Marlborough Public School and West Gate Public School in Windsor working with Indigenous elder, Mona Stonefish, and artist Patrick Mahon.

The history of Indigenous Peoples performing cultural dances and practices for international and colonial audiences is an important part of Indigenous art, generally, and performance art, specifically. The Indigenous performers known as ‘Indians’ faced the conundrum of maintaining traditional cultural practices by performing them on stage while also having that performance fulfill the desires of a colonial imaginary. In Sovereign Acts, the artists contend with the legacy of colonial representations. Their work returns to the multi-levelled history of ‘Performing Indian’ to recuperate the erased and objectified performer as an ancestor, an artist, and an Indigenous subject. It also means there are Indigenous traditions of performance that feed contemporary art and form an alternative art history.

The artists in Sovereign Acts are not just defining themselves from in/outside colonial histories but also from within ever-changing traditions of family, home, people, and territory. Performance is an act of cultural and political resistance as well as of remembrance and commemoration. It offers glimpses of a forgotten past, and uses creative fiction as a force against colonial narratives of capture, savagery, loss and disappearance. A truly Sovereign Act.

Curated by Wanda NanibushCirculated by the Art Museum at the University of Toronto